Many Q's from novice. Analog trks rec in mono. Do I mixdown in St? etc

[nzausrec]

Hi,
Many thanks for checking these questions.
One is lately I have heard about mono/stero stuff in the mix. Well, when I am using Cubase my input anolog stuff is recorded in mono. Should I do what I do now, which is merge it to stereo before a mixdown or just keep it at mono then let the mixdown make it into stereo? The vsti's are in stereo so that's why I think that it should be all recorded into stereo, to get a more balanced mix? Or, is that muffling the dynamics somehow?

Also, another question if anyone answers I'd be thankful, I have heard that people take two? stereo tracks and master them with another program. My problem here is that they talk about 'two tracks' and mastering them. But, when I mixdown with Cubase I only get one stereo track. I am completely lost what this could mean.

A third question is to do with drums from the vsti. I want to get a heavier louder drum esp kick, but, when I compress it and/or fade upward, or eq it, it will red-line. How do I get a decent kick and snare? I mean, my mixes invariably have weak drums (badly panned, too) in the mix. There's another one, how do you pan the drums without the cymbals being on a complete and other part of the stage???

Wow, hope you guys can answer some of these for me.

 

[gecko zzed]

Well, when I am using Cubase my input anolog stuff is recorded in mono. Should I do what I do now, which is merge it to stereo before a mixdown or just keep it at mono then let the mixdown make it into stereo? The vsti's are in stereo so that's why I think that it should be all recorded into stereo, to get a more balanced mix? Or, is that muffling the dynamics somehow?

You should keep it in mono and let the mixdown handle the rendering in stereo. The panning you set for the mono track will determine its position in a stereo mix. Whether the VSTis are mono or stereo has no bearing on the mono tracks. You won't be 'muffling the dynamics', and you save yourself a whole heap of messing around.

Also, another question if anyone answers I'd be thankful, I have heard that people take two? stereo tracks and master them with another program. My problem here is that they talk about 'two tracks' and mastering them. But, when I mixdown with Cubase I only get one stereo track. I am completely lost what this could mean.?

I expect there is some confusion arising from the interchangeablity of the terms 'stereo track' and 'two-track'. The latter stems from the days when a stereo result was achieved by recording from a multi-track tape onto two-track tape, which became the stereo master. When you do a mixdown in Cubase you will get one stereo wave file. It is this file you can load into another application (e.g. Soundforge) and do further work on.

A third question is to do with drums from the vsti. I want to get a heavier louder drum esp kick, but, when I compress it and/or fade upward, or eq it, it will red-line. How do I get a decent kick and snare? I mean, my mixes invariably have weak drums (badly panned, too) in the mix. There's another one, how do you pan the drums without the cymbals being on a complete and other part of the stage???

There are things you can do with EQ and compression, but try changing your mixing process might help.

Start by setting up the kit sound as best as you can with nothing else going. Then start bringing in the other instruments. By doing this, you can keep the kit prominent by not bringing up the other instruments so far. If you do the reverse, you can get the other instruments nice and loud, but leave nowhere for the kit to poke through.

Without knowing how you are creating your drum track, it is tricky advising on panning. However, it is reasonable to try and emulate a real kit, with kick and snare pretty much centred, and cymbals and toms spread around a bit. While some people pan these extremely widely, I don't think you need to go to that extreme. For one, it gives a pretty weird sounding kit if you are looking from the audience's perspective (the kit seems as wide as the stage), and, second, having a fairly narrow image can make the whole mix sound a bit more cohesive.

 

[nzausrec]

I appreciate those answers very much, gecko. I'll give those a try and see what happens.